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Last Friday, we held our first Master Class featuring Helen Miller at Scott Miller. Master Class is our newest offering to our Roc Girl Gang community. At Master Class, we dig deeper into our host’s entrepreneurial journey and it’s a more intimate feel than our larger Becoming Boss events (only 50 tickets sold versus 150). We were thrilled to feature Helen Miller as our first host. The Cub Room provided the tasty bites and champagne to set the mood during our mix & mingle (and shopping!) time before the relaxed panel-style discussion.

Helen, the visionary behind the Scott Miller empire, blew us away with her wisdom and words of advice. A week before the event, we gave our attendees the opportunity to send in their questions and we were able to ask Helen all of them. The discussion was informal enough for attendees to ask questions as they came up. It was wonderful to see and hear from so many fellow business owners. Here’s a sample of some of the questions that were asked:

Do you have any advice on team building and formation?

How do you decide where your time is best spent and what is better to delegate.

How has your job changed over time?

How do you ‘switch off’ outside of work, especially when working and living with your husband?

How to build trust, and how to connect with your team.

What is the most noticable challenge you’ve faced while building your business? How did you handle it?

What are some issues business owners should consider when scaling up?

When the market seems saturated with other people who offer the same kinds of services that you do, how do you set yourself apart?

Some of the key takeaways from our time with Helen….

It starts with YOU. To be a good boss, employee, partner or friend you need to work on yourself before you can work well with others. Start each day with deep breaths, meditation and take time for introspection.

There’s no substitute for hard work. In the very beginning, Helen worked as a banker and did the books for Scott Miller in the evening. She used to drive to NYC to track down the brands she wanted represented at Scott Miller. Her mindset: “what do I have to loose?” Basically, if you want it, you need to do the work.

When dealing with difficult situations/employees, try to figure out the “why” behind what is going on. Strategically manage your emotions and try to understand where the other person is coming from.

Don’t be afraid or guilty to take time for yourself. You need to be healthy emotionally, physically, spiritually if you want your business to thrive.

Communication is EVERYTHING. Communicate your core values, your expectations and your vision… then live it out!

We could go on and on…. there was so much valuable content and we are still smiling from the time we had together. We had so much fun meeting some new friends and we hope to see YOU at the next one!